


Two for Baloo

by deadlegato



Category: Talespin (Cartoon), The Jungle Book (1967)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:47:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23387605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deadlegato/pseuds/deadlegato
Summary: After trying to escape from air pirates inside a mysterious dark cloud, Baloo and Kit find themselves transported into the world of the Jungle Book.  Baloo is about to meet himself, but will they be able to get back to their own world?  Things get especially "hairy" when Louie, Shere Khan, and a group of explorers out to capture the 'flying machines' get in the way....  and they find out that they weren't the only things to go through the portal.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	1. Tunnel to another world

It was a perfectly normal stormy day. Dark clouds hung in the sky, threatening a light rain that had yet to arrive. The cargo was loaded, Baloo was flying, and Kit was in the passenger as usual. And, of course, the air pirates were trying to get on their case. Perfectly average day. 

“I can’t tell which is worse, them or fleas,” Baloo grunted as he waved through the sky. “Both want to bleed you dry and are harder than heck to shake off.” Looking around, he spotted a particularly dark set of clouds clustered together. “Perfect, we’ll lose them in there.”

“I don’t like the look of those clouds, Baloo,” Kit said. “They’re giving me a bad feeling.”

“Dealing with pirates gives me a bad feeling,” Baloo said as he flew into the cloud. 

The pirate captain Don Karnage was the closest on his tail, and immediately entered the cloud behind Baloo. The second after he did, a sudden rush of green-tinted lightning burst out of the cloud, forcing the other pirates to dodge and fall back. With a sudden loud puffing sound, the dark cloud disappeared from the sky. The two planes that had entered it were nowhere to be seen.

Inside the cloud, Baloo was fighting with the controls harder than he had ever fought. The plane was shaking violently, and they seemed to be trapped inside a grey tunnel sparking with green lightning. “I can’t control it! It’s like someone else has their hands on the controls!” Baloo said as they were forcibly sucked down the tunnel. “Buckle in, Kit, I don’t know where we’re coming out of this!”

Karnage was in the exact same situation, unable to control the movement of the plane through the tunnel and watching his instruments spin wildly. He could see Baloo’s plane ping-ponging around ahead of him, but it wasn’t like he could do anything about it. Suddenly, the cloud around them vanished. It was like it had spit them out into perfectly clear, blue sky. Unfortunately, at the same time, both of their engines died. 

Baloo frantically tried repeatedly to restart the engines as a lush, green canopy of trees appeared in front of his windshield. It would have been a beautiful site, were it not getting closer to hitting his face by the moment. At the last second the engines jumped back to life. It wasn’t enough to stop them from hitting the canopy, but it was enough that he could slightly control the landing to place the Sea Duck firmly in the tree branches in relatively one piece, rather than in a hundred pieces on the ground.

He and Kit looked all around, amazed not only by the fact that they survived, but by the surroundings. They were sitting on top of the canopy of a thick jungle that was nothing like the sea outside of Cape Suzette, where they had been before they entered the cloud. “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore, Kit,” Baloo said. 

Due to the limitations of the pirate’s plane’s engines, Karnage was far more used to having to restart his engine in mid-air than Baloo was. That didn’t mean it didn’t scare the hell out of him, but it wasn’t unprecedented. After managing to get the engine going again, he had located a narrow river to land on. While he made it down relatively safely, his lack of familiarity with the river meant that he didn’t see a rock in the water until the left pontoon hit it. The sudden force threw him forward, smashing his head against the windshield frame and knocking him utterly unconscious, slumped forward in his seat.

At a nearby village, a state of utter panic had broken out. A group of young British men emerged in a huddle from one of the thatched roof houses, yawning in annoyance that their afternoon nap had been broken by the sound of screaming. Their fathers had sent them on a ‘character building’ tour of the colonized continent, and none of them particularly wanted to be there. “What is all this nonsense?” one asked with a tired snort. He was a tall, stocky man with badly cut blond hair. His name was Michael, and he was the self-appointed leader of the group as his father had the most money.

“Two monstrous flying demons appeared out of the sky, streaked over the top of the village with noises like tigers roaring, and then vanished off into the jungle,” the village leader explained. 

“You expect us to believe a silly local superstition?” 

“Did you not hear them yourselves?” the leader asked, trying not to show enough annoyance that the men might accuse him of impudence. 

“We did hear something loud right before the screaming started,” Mickey said. He was the short, rotund one of the group, with short black hair that always seemed to be sticking up no matter how he tried to style it. Davey was the opposite, tall and thin as a beanpole with hair that was also so heavy with grease that it hung down in sticky clumps. The final member of their little expedition was Peter, who for all intents and purposes, looked like if you took a weasel and turned it into a human. Overly small eyes, with a bony and slightly hunched build that always seemed to be clasping his fingers like he had just thought of a devious plan.

“Flying monsters, though?” Michael asked in annoyance. 

“What if it was a flying machine?” Peter said. He even sounded like you might imagine a human weasel to sound. 

“A flying machine? I know a bunch of daft men are trying to invent them, but if someone had succeeded, it would have been all over the news.”

“Unless it’s a secret military invention and some other country is spying, plotting to take this country from the British empire,” Peter suggested.

Michael frowned and rubbed his chin. “I suppose that’s possible. We should go check it out. Gather a group to lead us!” Michael ordered to the village leader.

“That is going to be… difficult, my honored visitors. No one is going to want to go looking for something so terrifying.”

“Tell them that if we find something, they will be handsomely rewarded. If they refuse, well, I’ll have to have my father have a few words with the government about your inhospitality.”

The leader sighed miserably and headed out. He looked towards his wife, Messua. “Tell everyone to get the children inside. I don’t want them going out in the jungle until we know what those flying things were.”   
  



	2. Welcome to the Jungle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Louie gets in the way.

Out in the jungle, Baloo was doing a quick look over his plane. “Damage isn’t too bad, just some scratches. We’re lucky the trees caught us instead of breaking. Becky will probably do more damage to me when we’re late. We could probably take off again if we can keep our weight up on the canopy, but… how do we get home?” Baloo asked. “I have no idea where we even are!” 

“Maybe we should climb down and see if we can find someone who can at least tell us where we are,” Kit suggested. Baloo looked at how far up they were. He was not looking forward to that climb. “We might be able to get help getting the plane out of the tree too.” He wasn’t sure about the idea of trying to skip over the leaves like they were water.

-

Karnage was starting to come back around when he heard someone shouting. “Hello! Heeeeeello? You in the weird boat, are you okay?”

“Other than smashing my handsome face, I am fine,” he answered with a groan, sitting up to see who was calling to him. There was a small amount of blood on his face from a cut above the eye he had gotten in the impact. 

He locked eyes with the weirdest looking individual he had ever seen. If he had to describe the woman standing on the shore, it would be as a less hairy version of Louie’s aunt. Her clothing was even strange, a sort of draped design that Karnage had seen a few times at various international markets. He had never seen someone wearing one before. He figured that was what the animals of the country that made those clothes must look like.

Her mouth was hanging wide open and her eyes were as big as dinner plates. She had only gotten a good look at him when he sat up. She dropped her basket of fruits that she intended to take to the village to trade on the ground. Finally, she let out a horrific scream of “Yaksha!” and took off running in terror, leaving everything she had been carrying behind on the river shore. 

He was initially confused, before deciding that must be the local word for pirate. He thought her response has been entirely appropriate if that were the case. He was annoyed that he had to get his legs wet getting out of the plane to dislodge it from the rock it had been stuck on, before using a small amount of engine power to bring it to the shore. He was also utterly baffled to find himself in a jungle. He wasn’t aware of any jungles near Cape Suzette. What in the world had happened? Worse, what were his crew getting up to in his absence?? He thought about flying up again but decided that might be unwise as he didn’t know if he was in hostile territory or not. He could remember seeing a poor-looking village out of the corner of his eye, but he’d been more worried about crashing than the village itself to remember which direction it was in. 

-

Elsewhere, a panting Baloo had finally reached the bottom of the tree. Kit had climbed down significantly faster and was looking around in wide-eyed wonder. “This place is amazing,” he said as a butterfly went fast his face. 

“But where IS it?” Baloo asked. He fell the last couple of feet, but fortunately landed on his soft bum. 

“Maybe we should split up and see if we can find help?” Kit asked.

“Splitting up sounds like a bad idea when we have no idea where we are.”

“But splitting up means we can cover more ground, and if one of us gets in trouble, the other is still out there to help them.”

“Ooookay,” Baloo slowly and reluctantly agreed. “But only on the condition that you don’t go further than you can see the Sea Duck. Otherwise we might get lost and never find our way out of here,” Baloo said.

As Baloo was walking through the jungle, pushing thick foliage out of his way, a familiar looking orangutan suddenly dropped down in front of him. He was not only shocked to see his old friend; he was double shocked that his friend was completely naked. He got a triple shock when a bunch of Louie’s monkey friends dropped down from the trees, all similarly in the nude. “L-Louie? What are you doing here?” he asked, averting his gaze. He even held up his hand in a blocking gesture. 

“That’s King Louie to you, Baloo,” he said. “You got some man threads and you didn’t think to share them with me?” Louie asked in annoyance, tugging at Baloo’s shirt.

“Hands off! Just because you lost your clothes doesn’t mean you can have mine!”

“Finders keepers!” one of the monkeys laughed as it snatched the hat right off his head. 

“Hey! Give that back!” he shouted. Watching the monkey with his hat, though, distracted him enough that two more monkeys could swiftly move in and steal his shirt.

“Losers weepers!” the monkeys laughed.

“Now I’m really mad! Get back here!” Baloo shouted, chasing the laughing and hooting monkeys. They were moving quickly through the trees, and he was having to crash through the branches and shrubs on the ground. 

“Oh boy, boss, he really mad!” a monkey taunted.

Baloo tripped and tumbled into a ravine. By the time he recovered from the fall, the monkeys had vanished into the trees, leaving behind only their echoing laughter. Too late, he realized that in his blind chase after the monkeys, he had gotten out of sight of the Sea Duck. He was lost. 

Kit, meanwhile, was shocked to come around a tree and find Baloo already there, completely naked and napping in the sun. “Baloo?” he asked in shock, shaking Baloo’s shoulder. “Baloo, are you okay!? I thought you went in the other direction?”

Baloo yawned as he slowly opened his eyes. “Baggy, if you’re waking me up from my nap for a stupid reason, I swear I-“ be stopped when he saw Kit standing there, looking quizzically at him. “Oh, hello there, kid. What’s with the man clothes? You better not have snatched them off a drying line, the man village hates it when you do that,” he said through another yawn.

“What are you talking about, Baloo? Where are YOUR clothes?”

Baloo blinked. “I don’t know how you know my name, kid, but you must be mistaking me for some other bear if you think I’d be caught dead in a silly get up like a man. Unless it’s a party, I can make exceptions for parties,” he said, getting slowly up and scratching his back on the tree he had been sleeping under.

“Why do you keep calling me kid? Don’t you recognize me? Oh no- you must have hit your head! You’ve got amnesia!”

“I don’t know what amnesia is, but I know what I’ve got. I call it ants in me-a,” he said, lifting up a nearby downed log for a snack. 

“Amnesia means you’ve lost your memories and you’re confused.”

“No, I think you’re confused, kid. I’ve been living here all my life. Where did you come from?” Baloo then noticed the cub looked incredibly frustrated, and almost on the brink of crying. “Hey, hey,” he said, patting Kit twice on the shoulder. “Don’t cry, I can’t stand to see kids cry. Look, why don’t I help you find your mama bear? 

Maybe if I take him back to the plane, he’ll get his memories back, Kit thought. “Yeah… that would… be helpful. I think she might be… back this way…” Kit said, trying to lead Baloo back towards the Sea Duck. He yawned once again and shambled after Kit. 

Meanwhile, the other Baloo was following the trail of broken branches he had made to try to find his way back to the plane. Fortunately, he had left quite the destructive wake in his run. Otherwise he would have had no idea which way to go. He was still beyond confused. Why was Louie there? Why was Louie naked? Why did Louie steal his clothes?! The sooner he and Kit could get out of this looney bin of a place, the better. Rebecca would never believe his story. He wasn’t even sure Kit would believe it.

As one Baloo fought his way through the thick undergrowth, Kit and the other Baloo arrived back underneath the Sea Duck. Baloo squinted up at it. “What’s up there?” he asked. “Is that a really big fruit?!”

“No, it’s…” Kit sighed in frustration. “Just, look, if you’ll follow me up there it will be a great vantage point to… um… look for my mom.”

“Climb? Naaaaaah,” Baloo said, flopping down. “The walk tired me out enough. I need another nap.”

“Baloo,” Kit moaned. “Fine, you stay right there. Don’t move a muscle. I’ll be right back,” Kit said, starting to climb up the tree. He had to get something to jog Baloo’s memory.

“THAT, I can do!” Baloo called back. 

As the other Baloo was waiting for the cub to return, he heard a snap. His ears perked up slightly and he stood up, curious to see the source of the sound. It was coming from behind several large leaves. He reached out to push the leaves aside to see what was making the noise.

At the same time, Baloo reached for the leaves from the other side. When they parted the leaves at the same time, Baloo found himself looking at Baloo. Both Baloos tilted their heads in confusion. Both Baloos held up one hand and waved. Both Baloos shuffled left, then shuffled right. Both did spins in place with their hands raised like ballerinas. Finally, one Baloo reached out and honked the other one’s nose. Both screamed in unison as a response.

“Baloo!” Kit shouted as he heard the screaming. He immediately slid back down the trunk. “Baloo, what- HUH!??” he asked.

Two Baloos were staring at one another in shock. “It’s ME!” they said in unison, both raising their hands to point one finger at the other.

“T-two Baloos?”

“I don’t know who this is, but I’m the real Baloo,” one Baloo said, shoving the other.

“Keep your paws off me you imposter, I’m the real Baloo,” said the other, shoving back.

“This is my jungle, you big fake!”

“That’s my plane up in the trees, you cheap knock-off imitation!”

“Wait, wait, stop!” Kit said, getting between them and holding his hands out to keep them separate. “Maybe you’re both Baloo.”

“What do you mean by that?” both asked in unison, then looked angrily at one another again. 

“Baloo, uh… my Baloo… um… when we came through that cloud, is it possible we ended up in another world?”

“Come on, Kit, that thing only happens in comic books,” one of the Baloos said with a wave, and Kit was glad to finally figure out which Baloo was his. 

“How do you explain that we went from Cape Suzette to the middle of the jungle in the blink of an eye?” Kit asked.

Baloo thought for a moment. “You got me there.”

“You are both crazy,” the other Baloo said. “I’m getting out of here before the crazy spreads.”

“Wait, please, can you tell us where we are?” Kit asked. 

“Isn’t that obvious? You’re in the jungle.”

“Which jungle?”

“Does that matter?” the incredulous Baloo asked. “If you have to know… maybe my friend Baggy would know.”

“Can you take us to this… um… Baggy?” Kit asked. Baloo did not look like he wanted to. “The sooner we find out where we are, the sooner we can leave!” Kit added.

That seemed to convince the other Baloo. “If it means getting that imposter out of my jungle, I suppose I can introduce you. Follow me,” he sighed, shambling off.

As they followed him, Kit whispered, “What happened to your clothes?”

“Louie happened.”

“LOUIE?!” Kit asked. The other Baloo stopped and looked over his shoulder. 

“What did you say about that no-good Louie?” he asked suspiciously. “You’re not friends of his, are you?”

Kit was about to say something, but Baloo cut him off. “He stole my clothes!”

The other Baloo snort-laughed again. “That crazy Louie and his obsession with man things,” he said with a shake of his head. “You’re lucky that when he saw you had man clothes he didn’t try to force you to tell him how to make the red flower.”

“The red-“ Baloo decided he didn’t want to know, and shook his head slowly. He wasn’t going to ask.

-

Karnage, meanwhile, had decided to do some reconnaissance by walking a circle around his plane. He was using his sword like a machete to hack through the jungle growth when he suddenly emerged into a clearing. Sleeping in the middle of the clearing, belly up in the sun, he spotted a familiar face. It was a completely naked Shere Khan.

He was so surprised that he made an unintelligible noise, startling Khan awake. The tiger and the pirate stared at each other. Khan spoke first. “My, my, what DO we have here?” he asked. “It looks like a wolf,” he said slowly. He sniffed the air and made a face. “Smells like a wolf. But dresses like a man and walks up on two legs like a man?” he asked, getting up and padding on all fours towards a confused Karnage.

“Khan, so nice to see you again. You are not still mad about the- why are you talking on the four legs?” Karnage asked, easily distracted.

“Why am I walking on four legs? Why are you walking on two legs? I find the latter to be far more unnatural,” he said smoothly. 

“I appreciate the sunbathing as much as anyone but going nude is quite the bold choice. Have I intruded on your private island?”

“It should be,” Khan answered. “Unfortunately, there are too many fools around for me to claim sole dominion. It is my turn to ask a question. Where have we met before?”

“Pardon?”

“You said it was nice to see me again,” Khan pointed out. “But I think I would remember someone like you. Where have we met before?” 

“I did plundered a bunch of your planes, we were working together to drive up the oil prices, I made your robot pilots look like fools… Any of this ringing the bell?”

“You just said a whole bunch of words but none of them meant anything to me,” Khan said dryly. “All this conversation has been doing is making me hungry. I wonder, you walk like a man. Do you TASTE like a man?” Khan asked, moving another step forward. 

He was driven back by Karnage’s sword, which managed to nick a few whiskers. He rumpled his face up. “Annoying, you even cower behind your tools like a man. Fine, I will let you pass without incidence. You should get back to the dens of your kin before it gets dark. Wouldn’t want to be… lost in this jungle, would we?” Khan asked, taking several steps back and seemingly melting into the surroundings. Even though Karnage could no longer see where Khan was, he could still feel Khan’s eyes on him. He decided to get back to his plane and get the heck out of there.

-

Back at the bears, they walked for some distance before they reached a fallen tree with a black panther sleeping in it. “HEY BAGGY!” Baloo shouted, cupping his hands around his muzzle to amplify his voice. 

The panther made a face and groaned. “Baloo, how many times do I have to tell you, it is Bagheera, not Baggy. What is so important that you would be out shouting in the middle of the-“

Bagheera opened his eyes and found two Baloos and one juvenile bear in man clothes looking up at him. “Oh, I am still dreaming,” he said, closing his eyes again and rolling over.

“Excuse me, Mr. Bagheera?” Kit called. “I know this is a little strange, but we could really use some help. Can you tell us where we are?”

“In the jungle, of course. Bears in my dreams ask stupider questions than they do when I’m awake,” he grunted.

“Yes, but… which jungle? Which country?” Kit asked.

“Country?” Bagheera asked. “What is that?”

“It’s- nevermind. What’s the nearest city?”

“That would be the Man Village, but even my dreams wouldn’t be foolish enough to go there. They would skin you and make you into a rug.”

“What-what’s a man?” Baloo asked. He was imagining a nightmare creature after that introduction.

“You don’t know what a man is? What rock have you been living under, brother?” the other Baloo asked.

“I know a man is… a man…” he said, making vague gestures in the direction of his groin. “But I’ve never heard of Man Village that would make a rug out of your hide. What kind of men live there? Cannibals?”

“You have lived a sheltered life,” Bagheera said. “What do you mean, what kind of man? Man, man. There’s only one kind.” 

-

Still elsewhere, the villagers had come upon the terrified trader. “I saw… I saw a thing coming through the sky. I went to where I thought I saw it landing because I wanted to see what it was. There, I found a strange boat floating on the river. Inside the boat was- was a man with the head of a wolf!” she said as her body trembled. “All covered in fur but wearing clothes like a man. It SPOKE to me! It SPOKE to me in a man’s voice! It must be a yaksha!” 

“I have an alternative theory,” Mickey said. “I think Peter was right. They DID see an experimental flying machine, and whoever is developing it dressed their pilot up like a monster from the local mythology. That way if the locals saw it, they would attribute it to myth and legend instead of realizing they had seen a secret new technology.” 

“I know a man in a costume,” the woman insisted. “This was not a costume!”

“What else could it be?” Davey asked. “A werewolf in a flying machine?”

“I think Mickey is right. We need to find this flying machine and capture it for the glory of the empire. Keep the pilot alive when we find it, we will need him to explain how it works. Go on, get to it,” Michael said, clapping his hands together. The villagers looked nervously at one another. “I said, get to it. Or do I have to have a word with daddy?”

“Two machines,” Peter reminded him. “The villagers reported TWO flying machines.” 

-

“Well, that was a waste of an afternoon,” Baloo yawned. He was shambling back towards his favorite resting place, leading the other Baloo and Kit back to their plane. Bagheera was wandering with them, still not sure if he was asleep or awake. He was chatting with Kit about their homeland.

“So… everyone where you came from wears clothes like a man? And walks upright like a man?”

“No, the women wear clothes like women and walk upright like women… I guess…” Kit said. The whole man thing still wasn’t communicating between them. “But I guess you’ve got the principle right.”

“And you… fly through the sky like birds?”

“Yep, it’s our job.”

“And you came here through a dark cloud?”

“Yes.”

“Well, it seems to me that, assuming this isn’t just the strangest dream I have ever had, you need to fly back into the cloud to return to your own home.”

“How do we do that, though? The cloud disappeared when we came through, and we don’t know how to find it again.”

“You are asking the wrong panther that question.” 

It was getting dark by the time they made it back to the Sea Duck. “I should make a fire before it gets too dark to see properly,” Kit said, starting to gather up some small sticks. The other Baloo and Bagheera looked absolutely flabbergasted. “You can- make the red flower?” the other Baloo finally asked in shock.

“Yeah, one of the few useful things I ever learned from the air pirates,” Kit answered.

“What’s an… air pirate?” the other Baloo asked.

Kit’s Baloo replied with “I envy you for not knowing that.”

“But… YOU? You can make the red flower?” Bagheera repeated in shock. “And please, stop speaking that word. It is quite contrary to the laws of our jungle.”

“I apologize, but- why is that so surprising?”

“Because making red flower is an ability only man has!” the other Baloo said in horror. “What kind of terrible world do you come from?”

“Did you hear what Baloo just said?” a voice came out of the trees above them.

“Which Baloo?”

“Two Baloo?”

“Oh, what to do!” a monkey asked as it dropped down in their faces. 

“You! Give me back my clothes!” 

“Okay, you want it, you got it!” the monkey said, and slammed the hat down on Baloo’s head covering his eyes. “In trade, we’ll take the kid!” the monkey said, grabbing Kit’s arm.

“Let go of me!” he protested, but three other monkeys had descended on him. Each monkey grabbed a different limb and lifted him up.

“The boss is going to love you, kid!”

“Yeah, you’ll really GO PLACES with us!” another snickered as they took off back into the trees with a kidnapped Kit.

“Baloo, help!”

“Kit!” he shouted back as he managed to pull his hat off his face. He tried to run after them, but the monkeys were too fast, bodily throwing Kit from group to group of themselves.”

“You have to help me get Kit back!” Baloo said desperately.

“I absolutely agree. It could be a disaster if Louie gets his hands on the red flower!” Bagheera said.


	3. It’s a party at Louie’s and Baloo is not invited

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Baloo and Baloo invite themselves to the party at Louie's place to rescue Kit. Bring on the coconuts.

Karnage had also noticed the incoming darkness and had decided he needed to hurry back to his plane before it got completely dark. He didn’t want to be out in a strange place without being able to see. As he was hurrying through the brush, something cold and scaly smacked him in the face and he jumped back in disgust.

“Sssssorry,” the long snake hissed. “Did I sssssssstartle you?” Kaa asked with a chuckle. He made a half loop around Karnage, sizing up whether he was the appropriate size to eat. This strange one was walking upright, wearing man clothes, and carrying a pointy stick. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to eat funny looking food. Karnage had his sword in between himself and the snake, not trusting what it was going to do next. Before either of them could move, voices suddenly came out of the fading light.

“Whoa, get a load of this!”

“This puppy’s got claws,” another voice laughed. 

“Hey, are you the one that gave Baloo his crazy clothes?”

“Baloo? You know where that oaf is?” Karnage asked, looking around for the source of the hidden voices.

A bunco of monkeys dropped out of the trees, holding onto the branches by their tails, grinning wildly. “Of course, we do! You want us to take you to him?”

“At this point, no,” Karnage said in annoyance. “I could care less what that fool is doing.”

“Okay. So… we’ve just got one more question for you,” said one monkey, sitting Kaa’s head to Kaa’s great annoyance. He tried to snap at the monkey, but it moved away too quickly. “Up or down?”

“What?”

“Up or down!”

“I am not in the mood for this foolishness.”

“Come on, man, just be a pal and play along. Up or down?”

Karnage rolled his eyes. “Fine, fine, I pick up. Now will you leave me alone?”

The monkeys all gave wide Cheshire grins. “He chose uuuuuuuuup!” they said in unison.

With amazing speed, the monkeys had similarly grabbed the surprised Karnage and threw him up into the trees. One of them had even managed to nab his sword in the process. “Can’t fly with pointy things, you might poke your eye out,” the monkey laughed. 

“Get your stinking paws off me, you dirty apes!” he shouted as they tossed him through the trees. “Put Don Karnage- which is me- down!”

“Oh, you want to go down now? Okay!” the monkeys said and released him in mid-air. He fell a frightening distance before the monkeys caught him again. “So, do you still want down, or shall we stay with up?” one asked.

“I said put me down, not drop me,” Karnage pointed out.

“What’s the difference?” another monkey asked as they continued to play hot potato pirate. 

The monkeys finally unceremoniously but safely dropped Karnage back to the ground. He landed flat on his belly next to Kit. There was a clank as the monkeys deposited his sword on top of a pillar out of his reach. “What are you doing here?” Kit asked.

“I could ask you the same,” Karnage said, sitting up and dusting himself off.

“Hello, everyone! Hello, bear-ers of the man clothes!,” Louie joked. “Glad you could make it to my humble abode,” he said, waving his arms in a larger than life bow as he rose off his stone throne. There were discarded bottles from the human settlement hung up around the room and filled with luminescent insects, which gave the space a surprising amount of light despite the darkness closing in around them. “I have to say, I have to say, I’m a little big jealous that you two have made such strides towards being like men when I’m stuck. But I think you can help old King Louie out.” 

“Louie? Why are you wearing Baloo’s shirt?” Kit asked. It took him a moment to realize that, if there was another Baloo in this world, there likely was another Louie. Oh, God, did that mean there was another Karnage too?

Louie looked annoyed. “See here, cub, this is my shirt now. That means it’s Louie’s shirt, ya got it?”

“He has a point. Possession is nine tenths of the law,” Karnage said.

“Since when did you care about the law?” Kit asked back sarcastically. 

“Let’s stop the small talk and get straight to the point. Bear cub, I hear you can make the red flower. I want you to lay that secret on me.”

“I’m- I’m not telling you anything!” Kit snapped.

Louie looked over at Karnage. “What about you? Do you know how to make the red flower?”

“The red what?” Kit knew that Karnage DID know how to make fire, and that it was likely that he would tell Louie for a price. Kit was therefor glad that Karnage did not understand the jungle animal’s euphemism. Giving Louie fire seemed… like a bad idea. The Louie he knew was a great chef, yes, but this one seemed more likely to burn down the jungle than make a delicious hot meal. 

“Disappointing,” Louie said with a sigh. “Although I do like your clothes! You suppose I could try them on some time?” he asked, but as he reached out, Karnage snapped at him as if threatening to bite, and he pulled back. “Okay, okay, I get it. I can respect that.” He turned his attention back to Kit. 

“Look, kid, the secret of the red flower is the only thing holding me back from being human. So we can do this the easy way, or the hard way.”

“Trust me, he’ll pick the hard way.”

“Shut up, Karnage,” Kit said. “What’s a human?”

“A human! You know, MAN!” Pieces were starting to come together in Kit’s head. The man Bagheera and the other Baloo had been talking about- it wasn’t a man as in a boy. It was some kind of other animal, a… human? Kit had never heard of that species before. “I’ve got an entire song about it, if you wanna hear it.”

“Thanks but I’m good, actua-“

Louie launched into the song and dance despite Kit’s attempt to say no. “I think that was the rhetoric question,” Karnage said to Kit. 

“I’m thinking that too,” Kit said dryly, arms crossed. It was only a moment later that the monkeys yanked them to their feet and threw them across the room, deciding everyone should dance.

Meanwhile, the two Baloos were hiding behind the bushes with Bagheera. “Hey, I know this song!” Baloo said, snapping his fingers with the beat.

“It’s a catchy song,” the other Baloo agreed.

“Nevermind that, think of how we’re going to get in to rescue your friend,” Bagheera said. “We can use stealth and move in the shadows while they’re distracted…

“Oooooooooor we could put on a coconut monkey costume and sneak our way onto the dance floor!” one Baloo said.

“Baloo no,” Bagheera replied.

“Baloo yes!” the two Baloos said in unison. Bagheera smacked himself in the face with his paw and silently prayed to the mother panther to ask what he’d done wrong to deserve this. 

“You still haven’t explained what a human is!” Kit shouted as he was spun and tossed around the monkey dance floor. The monkeys tossed Kit and Karnage so that their backs slammed into one another.

“I hate to say this,” Kit whispered, “But I think we’re going to have to work together to get out of this.”

“You have a plan?” Karnage asked.

“Can you fight them off if we can get your sword?” Kit asked, nodding to the post where it was still sitting.

“I could try, but there is too many of them. We are outnumbered badly.”

“We don’t have to fight all of the monkeys,” Kit pointed out. “We just have to get Louie at sword point and the others should back off.” 

“Okay, but how do we get over there without being noticed? We need a distraction.”

Right at that moment, two disguised Baloos burst on the scene. Surprisingly, despite the monkeys having seen Baloo’s monkey costume before, it still fooled them again. But, this might have been because Louie was paying more attention to his song than to what was going on around him. “The cavalry has arrived!” Kit said brightly. 

“Kill me now,” Karnage replied. 

“Let’s just hope Baloo keeps their attention long enough to get the sword back.”

Indeed, the two Baloos were really tearing it up in the center of the dance floor, with the monkeys onlooking and clapping. They seemed to be attempting to one-up one another. One would do a dance move, and the other would copy it to prove they could do it too. For a bear with a reputation for laziness, he sure could bust a move when he wanted to.

Taking advantage of the monkeys’ eyes being on Baloo, Karnage finally retrieved his sword. “You get up and hide behind Louie’s throne,” Kit said, pointing. “I’ll tell Baloo we need to get Louie into the chair so you can jump him.” 

“I do not take orders from you!”

“Fine, what is your plan?”

“I will hide behind Louie’s throne, and you will get Baloo to lure him to the chair so I can make for the surprise.”

“Genius, why didn’t I think of it?” Kit said, rolling his eyes.

“Because you do not have a brilliant brain like mine.”

However, a few moments after they separated, a complication arose. That complication was Louie’s orangutan aunt dropping in and grabbing Karnage by the arms. “Hello, cutie. I should have said something earlier, but I just LOVE your voice! Let’s dance!”

“Not aaaaaaagain,” Karnage whined as she threw him around in a circle. Her hands were sweaty from partying, though, and she lost her grip. So instead of dancing, she shot put Karnage halfway across the room and directly into one of the two Baloos. When they hit the ground, his costume fell off.

The dance ground to a halt. “Really, Baloo?” Louie asked in annoyance as he and the angry monkeys closed in.

“Uh… yeah, Baloo. Really?” the other Baloo said, crossing his arms. Suspiciously, Louie reached up and pulled off the other Baloo’s coconut muzzle.

“I told you we saw two Baloos, boss!” one of the monkeys said as he pointed.

Louie cracked his knuckles. “I think the Baloos will be the ones seeing double in a moment.”

“May I take this moment to point out that I do not know Baloo?” Karnage asked, feeling nauseous from being dizzy. 


	4. When in Rome

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Baloo has a hard time adapting to the jungle life.

“Leave him- um- leave them alone!” Kit said bravely in the face of the monkeys. 

“Then let’s make a deal, cub. You give me the secret of the red flower, and you and both your stupid looking Baloos can walk out of here without any broken bones.” 

“FOOLS!” a loud voice suddenly boomed, and a massive black shapeless form had appeared out of the darkness. The monkeys all jumped and skittered backwards. A dusty smoke billowed out from behind the stones of the ruin. 

“Who… who are you?” Louie asked the giant shadow.

“I am the ghost of the ruins! You have displeased me by dancing on my grave! Now all you shall pay the price!”

“GHOST! RUN!” the panicked monkeys shouted, taking off in all directions at once. 

In the aftermath, Bagheera emerged from his hiding spot, triumphantly holding up the bottle full of lightning bugs he had been using to cast that shadow that had terrified the monkeys in his mouth. He kicked up a bunch of dust to demonstrate how he had made the smoke effect. 

“Baggy, I never thought you had it in you,” Baloo said, grinning ear to ear.

In the panic to get away, Louie had left behind Baloo’s shirt. He gladly retrieved it. “Ugh, it smells like monkey now,” he noted, making a wrinkle nose face.

“How does that smells any different from usual for you,” Karnage asked.

“I’m glad you’re fine too, Karny.”

They “borrowed” a bunch of Louie’s lighting decorations and followed one of the two Baloos back into the jungle. It was too dark for Karnage to get back to his own plane without knowing exactly where it was, so he reluctantly went with them, staying several paces behind. Bagheera took up the final position at the rear. As they were walking, Karnage perked his ears up.

“Wait, wait,” he finally said. “I can hear a group talking. Is it the monkeys coming back?”

“I can’t hear anything,” Jungle Baloo said. 

“No, he’s right,” Bagheera said after a moment. “I can hear them too. It sounds like the language of men.”

“Then we need to be extra careful to avoid them,” Pilot Baloo said.

“No one has explained what a human is yet,” Kit pointed out. “That’s what you meant by man, right? Human?”

“Are they hairless apes?” Karnage asked.

“I… guess you could say that, but not really…”

“Then I believe I saw one. They are very ugly.”

“And very dangerous,” Bagheera said. 

“How could they be more dangerous than me, the fearsome pirate Don Karnage?” he asked.

“Even you don’t normally skin people and turn them into rugs,” Pilot Baloo said with a shudder, remembering the earlier conversation.

“Well, no, but I have considered it many times for you,” Karnage answered honestly. 

“With your kind, they would cut off the tail off your dead body and wear it. I have seen them do it many times,” Bagheera said.

After a long pause, Jungle Baloo said “Mowgli would never…”

“You know I am speaking of the rule, not the exception,” Bagheera cut him off. “Now be quiet, we need to listen so we don’t walk right into them.” 

They only went as far as Bagheera’s tree, as Jungle Baloo and Bagheera both felt it would be unwise to take individuals were not familiar with the jungle landscape all the way back to Baloo’s territory. There were too many deep ravines along the way. On top of that, they had no idea where Shere Khan was and they didn’t want to encounter him on a night prowl. 

Speaking of Shere Khan, they had failed to notice it, but a fish-owl had been watching them by moonlight. The owl flew back and whispered to the vultures, who were being kept up by Khan waiting for a report. “So, the final count is two Baloos, another upright walking bear in man’s clothes, and the wolf man,” Khan said. “Interesting.” 

-

“So, we figure we have to find that cloud again to get home,” Pilot Baloo explained to Karnage.

“Finding it again could take months or years. Who knows what destruction those morons will have done to my ship in that time!” Karnage replied. 

“If you know any way to find the cloud faster, I’d love to hear it.”

There was silence before Kit spoke up. “What if we never find the cloud? What if we’re trapped here?”

“It’s not so bad, kid,” Jungle Baloo said. “No worries, no responsibilities, just the bear necessities.” 

“Please don’t sing,” Bagheera said.

Jungle Baloo glared at him. He turned back to the other bears. “I’d even be willing to show you two around, get you used to where to find the best grub. I bet the wolf pack around here wouldn’t mind taking on another member, even if he is a weird looking one.”

“Look who is doing the talking,” Karnage snorted. “I am a leader, not a follower. Besides… I am not a nudist.”

“If you ask me, all that clothing business just looks restrictive. I prefer just me and the breeze blowing in the fur between my-“

“You don’t have to finish that thought,” Pilot Baloo cut in. “You’re being very nice to offer, but Kit and I have friends back home. People who will be worried about us.”

“I’m worried about my ship,” Karnage said. 

“No one asked you.”

Kit yawned. Jungle Baloo also yawned. “I think the kid has it right. We should try to get some sleep now. Gotta get your beauty rest so you can hunt up that cloud!”

-

When Pilot Baloo woke up the next morning, he found the other Baloo and Kit still sound asleep. Bagheera was nowhere in sight. He was basically alone with Karnage, who was clearly eating something. “What do you have in your mouth? Drop it! We don’t know what is safe to eat here!”

Karnage gave Baloo a withering look and swallowed whatever he had in a noisy gulp. “Calm your face, the black cat brought morning food.”

“Oh, okay. What did he bring?”

Karnage held up a dead rabbit by the ears, clearly enjoying the look of horror on Baloo’s face as he recoiled back. “What, do you think the burgers you are fond of did not come of flesh?” he asked.

“I’m just not used to my food looking at me,” Baloo answered. “You know, I think I’ll just skip breakfast today.

“It is rude to refuse your host’s hospitality when in a foreign country.” 

“You don’t get to lecture me on being rude, you… did you eat the whole thing, even the fur?”

“Of course not!” Karnage scoffed. “I know how to clean rabbit. City people are usefulless.” 

Their argument had stirred up Jungle Baloo and Kit, who groggily got off the logs they had been sleeping on. Pilot Baloo was temporarily grateful when Jungle Baloo also wrinkled his nose up at the idea of eating the rabbits, which he said he would only do if he was ‘starving.’ He was less relieved to discover that Jungle Baloo considered a decent breakfast to be an all you can eat buffet of bugs found under the logs and rocks. At least the fruit offerings were decent. The idea of potentially being stuck eating like a wild animal for the rest of his life was a big motivator for Baloo to find that cloud again.

They were sitting around trying to decide what to do next when they were all startled to their feet by Khan’s smooth, almost noiseless emergency from the leaves. “Well, well, the rumors are true. There’s two of you. Is the stupid additive or exponential?” 

Jungle Baloo snorted. “That’s a pale imitation of the real thing.” Pilot Baloo glared at the other Baloo and crossed his arms. “What do you want?”

“Ooooh, I just thought I would inform you that the villagers and a group of British-looking men are out looking for the flying monsters. The British men are armed with dogs and guns. Wouldn’t want you to accidentally get shot, now would we?” Khan asked, admiring his claws. 

Kit decided to take a risk. “Wait, do you know where we are? I mean, what country this is?”

“You’re in India, of course,” Khan said, as if he couldn’t understand how they didn’t know that. 

“I don’t know why you need to know, but it is the decade of 1890, under the reign of the sovereign Queen Victoria.”

“The 1890s?!” Kit said back in shock. “I wasn’t even born then.”

“Me either,” Pilot Baloo said. “We’re not only in another world and another place, we’ve gone back in time?!”

“Back in time to before planes were invented,” Kit added in. “Which means we’re not going to be able to find fuel. We’ve only got what is still in our tanks to find that cloud.” 

Jungle Baloo, meanwhile, was keeping a suspicious and wary eye on Khan. “What do you want, Khan? You never help anyone from the good of your heart.” 

“My friend, you wound me. Assuming I must always want something to help a fellow jungle denizen,” he said, putting a dramatic paw to his face. “If that is how you feel about me, I will leave,” Khan said as he slunk away. If all the villagers are out hunting for the strangers, Khan thought with a smile, that means there are very few of them left to watch the village. Very few of them left between himself and his revenge on the man cub.

“Something else is bothering me,” Karnage said as Khan slipped away. “Can Baloo assist me with an experiment? That Baloo,” he said, pointing to the pilot version.

“What do you want?”

“I want to know if you can hear me say that you’re fat and ugly.”

“THE HELL, KARNAGE?!” Baloo asked.

“Second question, do you speak the Spanish?”

The Pilot Baloo paused and blinked. “No?”

“Then you should not have been able to understand me.”

“Wait, can you say that sentence one more time.”

“I will say that you are fat and ugly as often as you want me to.”

Pilot Baloo frowned. “Your accent disappeared.”

“What?”

“When you speak Spanish, I hear you in English, but without an accent. What the heck is going on here?”

“If we are really in the India, we should not be able to understand any of them,” Karnage pointed out, gesturing broadly to the other animals. “I believe some speak English in India, but not all, and I certainly do not know any languages of India.” 

“How many languages do you speak?” Pilot Baloo asked.

“Four very well, six if you count enough to getting by. So put that in your hat and smoke it next time you want to make the fun of the way I talk.” 

“We’re getting distracted!” Kit broke in. “The thing we should be focusing on now is that there are humans out there looking for us and our planes! If they find us, who knows what they will do to us, and we might change the timeline of this world if they get our planes. Our is relatively well hidden up there,” Kit said, pointing to the canopy, “But where is yours?” he asked Karnage.

“On the shore of the river. Somewhere. I am not exactly sure as the monkeys were not so good at giving directions when we left.” 

“First priority, you need to get back to your plane and hide it.”

“I can take you to the river,” Bagheera volunteered. 

“I will go, but I will go because I am tired of dealing with two Baloos. Not because you told me to go.” 

“We should go back to the Sea Duck,” Pilot Baloo said. He wouldn’t say it out loud because he didn’t want to offend his gracious hosts, but he wanted to get some of the regular food he had stashed in the cockpit.

“To the what?” Jungle Baloo asked. “What duck?”

“The big yellow fruit,” Kit said.

“Oh! Hey, Baggy, that’s in my termite stomping grounds. After you find the… what was it… pain?”

“Plane,” Kit corrected.

“Oh, well, after you find the plane and take care of hiding it, why don’t you two rendezvous with us there?” 


	5. Up a tree without a paddle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How do you get a pirate captain out of a tree?

Unfortunately for everyone’s plans, thanks to the directions of the terrified trader, the scouting crew had managed to find the pirate plane. “This is… this is absolutely amazing!” Mickey said in awe. “It really IS a flying machine!”

“But without any idea how to operate it, it’s not going to fly for us. That’s why we must find the flyer. Speaking of which,” Peter said as Michael and the dogs appeared out of the brush. “Any luck?”

“The dogs tracked the scent to a clearing, but it didn’t go any further. He must have turned around. We found a few shoe prints in the mid, but they were quite smeared.”

As the men were talking, the hunting dogs heard someone whispering. “Psss, psss. Hey, hey, up here.” 

They turned their heads to see several vultures up in a tree. Khan had sent them to make sure the hunting party would be distracted long enough for him to move in. “What do you want?” they asked with a growl. Of course, they were speaking the language of animals, which meant that the humans they were with heard only squawks and growls. 

“We know where the one you’re looking for is.” 

The lead dog, Michael’s dog, growled deeply. “If you are lying to us, we will have new feather pillows for our dog houses.”

The vultures swallowed nervously. “No- no sir. We would never do such a thing, sir.”

The lead dog nodded to the others. With a loud bay, they rushed into the jungle, following the vultures.

“Hey, what’s up with the hounds?” Davey asked.

“They’ve got the scent! Follow them!” Michael ordered.

-

Karnage and Bagheera both perked their ears when they heard the sound of baying hounds. “That sounds too close for comfort,” Bagheera said. “Let’s go back.”

“I concur.”

They scrambled back through the brush as quickly as they could, but on four legs the dogs were much faster than a wolf on two legs. Realizing that they were going to be caught, Bagheera called back “Climb up a tree!”

“Climbing trees is for cats,” he shouted back between panting breaths. Realizing, however, that he would rather wound his pride than have his body wounded by the oncoming dogs, he eventually had no choice but to scramble up a tree. He just barely climbed high enough in just avoid the largest of the dogs snapping at his heels. 

“As fellow canids, can we not talk this out like gentlemen?” he asked, looking down at them.

Michael’s dog growled. “Our master told us to catch you, so that is what we are going to do.”

The great pirate Don Karnage, treed by a bunch of freaks wearing only leather collars and talking about their master, he thought to himself. How absolutely… embarrassing. He was glad his crew was not there, as they would NEVER let him forget it. “Stay there, I will get the Baloos to help,” Bagheera called from another tree. What option did he have BUT to stay where he was? Waiting for the Baloos to help though… that did not sound like a good idea.

Hearing the sound of voices oncoming, he decided to climb higher into the trees so that he could hide in the leaves. When the men following the dogs arrived, they could tell SOMETHING was up in the tree, but they couldn’t see exactly what. From his vantage point he could see that at least four of the men were armed with hunting guns. Those were not the kind of odds he wanted to take on with a sword and a single-shot pistol. 

“Hello up there,” Michael called. “I apologize if my exuberant dogs gave you a bit of a scare. I will call them off, so why don’t you come down and we’ll have a polite conversation?” There was no answer, which annoyed Michael. “Come on now, we can tell you’re up there. We won’t hurt you; we promise!” One of the villagers noticed Michael was crossing the fingers of one hand behind his back. 

There was still no answer. Getting a bit red faced, Michael continued. “Look, if you don’t say anything by the count of three, I’m going to assume you’re just a wild animal and start shooting,” he said, raising the muzzle of the gun up towards the tree. “One… two… three!” he said and fired off a shot. It hit the tree dangerously close to Karnage’s face, eliciting a surprised yelp.

“Okay, okay, stop shooting me! You are annoyingly persistence.” 

“Ah, so you CAN talk. We have your flying machine. We want you to show us how to operate it. You have my word, we won’t hurt you,” he said. Then he whispered “much.”

“I heard you say much,” Karnage shouted back.

“Michael,” Mickey said in an annoyed whine.

“I didn’t know he had such good hearing,” Michael said back. “If we could just shoot him this would be easier, but we need him alive to show us the machine.” He turned to the villagers. “One of you, climb up there and get him!”

The villagers looked nervously at one another, none of them wanting to be the one to volunteer. “Go on, get UP THERE!” he said, grabbing one by the shoulder and pushing him against the trunk.

The terrified man started slowly climbing upward. Karnage looked around at the abundance of round fruit in the tree. “When in Baloo land, do like the Baloo,” he said to himself with a shrug.

The man ended up falling back down out of the tree when he took a fruit straight to the face. “Ow,” he said as he lay on the ground.

“Throwing fruit is poor sport!” Peter shouted up at the tree, and then had to duck as another fruit nearly got him. “Okay, so he’s got decent aim.” 

“He doesn’t have an unlimited supply of fruit, get up there!” Michael ordered as he shoved two more villagers against the tree. At that moment, Michael took a smack of fruit to the face.

“He seems to have ENOUGH fruit, boss,” Mickey said dryly.

“That’s it! Everyone, grab the tree and shake him down! He can show us how the machine works after we fix whatever bones he breaks in the fall.”

“Uh, boss, are you sure that’s a-“

“Stop talking and start shaking!”

Of course, shaking a tree full of large and heavy fruit was NOT a wise decision, and about half of the hunting party ended up with bruises or lumps because of the attempt. “Well, we got a lot of fruit,” Davey said. 

Still up in the tree, clinging to the trunk, Karnage could hear a very strange buzzing sound. He looked around for the source and discovered that the shaking of the tree had angered a frighteningly large looking nest of bees… dangerously close to where he was sitting. Deciding that the bees were more terrifying than the humans, he was back down the tree fast enough to potentially set a new tree-climbing world record. It was at this moment that everything dissolved into chaos.

“Yaksha!” one of the villagers screamed, and they scattered in multiple directions.

“Holy heck it really is a werewolf!” Davey shouted, grabbing onto Peter.

“Where wolf?” Peter asked.

“There wolf!” Davey responded. 

At the same time, Karnage pointed upwards, said “Bees” very loudly, and took off on his own.

“Get that creature, don’t let it get away!” Michael shouted.

“What did it mean by bees?” Mickey asked. A second later, Mickey understood as the bees descended from the tree in a swarm.

“Bees!” Mickey said, taking off in a different direction from Peter and Davey.

“Never mind the bees, you idiots! Get the- why am I the only one with brains?” he groaned, then turned to his hunting dogs. “Get the creature, get it!” he said, pointing. As his dogs took off howling and barking, he realized that he probably should have gone with them. Because… bees. Very angry bees.

Between crashing through the jungle trying to get away from angry bees and angry hunting dogs, Karnage was not paying as much attention to where he was going as he probably should have been. He caught his boot on a vine and went down hard, rolling several times before landing at the bottom of a ravine. When he tried to get back up a sharp pain shot through his leg, dropping him to his knees again. He wasn’t sure if his leg was broken or just sprained, but he couldn’t put any weight on his left side. 

The hunting dogs were circling around, growling. He growled back at them and pulled his sword. If he was going down, he wasn’t going down without a fight. The dogs maintained their cautious distance, and he was in no shape to rush them. They were at a standoff.

Michael finally arrived behind the dogs, training his rifle directly at the downed wolf creature. “I’ve had fruit thrown in my face and I am covered in bee stings. I should blow a hole through your head right now and have your pelt mounted on my wall. You’re lucky you’re worth more to me alive than dead. Don’t think that means I wouldn’t be willing to cripple you, though. Drop the weapon and put those hand-paws where I can see them,” he ordered.

Mickey had arrived to provide armed back up by that point. Realizing that sometimes surrender meant living to potentially fight again, Karnage released his sword and held up his hands. He had a chance with a sword against dogs. Not so much against multiple guns. “Mickey, go down there and tie that thing up,” Michael ordered.

“ME?! It’s your monster, you go tie it up! I don’t want to get turned into a werewolf if it bites me!” They continued to argue back and forth for a few moments before the village leader arrived, and they ordered him to take care of the problem. 

-

Back in Jungle Baloo’s territory, Pilot Baloo and Kit finally made the climb back up to their plane. Baloo was huffing and panting like he had just run a marathon. As he rested on the cool metal floor, they both heard a voice crackling through the radio. “He-hello? Is anyone there? Hello?”

Since Baloo was too winded to talk, Kit grabbed the radio. “Hello? Who is there?”

“My name is Doctor R. Bitt, I work for Khan Industries. I’m so glad I managed to lock onto your signal. We were testing an experimental device to allow pilots to make flights that normally take hours or days in minutes when you flew right into the test!”

“Wait, you mean… you CREATED that cloud?”

“Yes. Not only would it get pilots places faster, it would infest them with translation nanobots that would allow them to speak with anyone in any language for three to four days. The ultimate perfection of international trade!”

“That explains a few things,” Baloo panted. “Ask them how we get back!”

“How do we get back?” Kit asked.

“We have locked onto your location. When you give the signal, we can open the cloud tunnel again. But…”

Kit and Baloo had a feeling they weren’t going to like the but. “But what?” Kit asked.

“The algorithm we are using to make the tunnel is dependent on the mass of what goes in, to determine what can come back out. Therefor, for it to work, both planes what went in at the same time also need to go out at the same time. If only one of you enters the tunnel, we can’t be certain what will happen. It might rip you apart atom by atom. It might slingshot you into outer space.”

“That’s not too big of a problem, we know where the… uh… other pilot is,” Kit said, not wanting to name names. He was afraid they might decide not to bring them back if they knew who they were bringing back. 

“As soon as you two are back together and ready to go, give me the signal. I’m not sure I can open this more than once, so we have to do it right on the first try.”

Kit hung up the radio. “This is great news, all we have to do is wait for Karny and Baggy to get back, and we can get out of this insane asylum,” Baloo said.

It was at that moment that Bagheera came crashing into the plane, out of breath from the run he had just made. “Bagheera?” Kit asked, worried. “Bagheera, what’s wrong?”

“The men found us. I had to leave your friend up a tree and run back here for help.”

“He’s NOT our friend,” Baloo said. “But unfortunately, we need him to get back home, so we had better go get him.”


	6. The Man Village

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone goes on the rescue mission.

They arrived where Bagheera was certain he had left Karnage to find no one around, although there was plenty of evidence that something had taken place from the smashed fruit and panicked footprints marking the ground. Jungle Baloo noted that the bees were stirred up as well.

Bagheera followed Karnage’s scent until they arrived at the ravine. Among the broken branches, they found pieces of the red sash torn off his coat and his sword lying unattended on the ground. “This is not a good sign,” Pilot Baloo said, picking it up. 

“The men must have gotten him. He may already be dead,” Bagheera said somberly. 

“Well that’s too sad. Kit, I guess you’re flying the other plane home,” Pilot Baloo said in an overly cheerful tone. 

“I can’t fly that plane! Even if I had a basic idea of how that model works, he’s made so many modifications to it, I doubt anyone but Karnage himself would understand the controls. Besides, even if he is Karnage, we can’t just… leave him here.”

Pilot Baloo sighed. “I know, I know, we’re the good guys. How are we going to do this?”

“Disguise time?” Jungle Baloo asked.

“The men aren’t as stupid as the monkeys. They’ll see through a coconut face and a grass skirt in no time,” Bagheera said. 

“Well, maybe it’s still disguise time, but we need to be clever with our disguises. I think we have some things back in the Sea Duck that would work!”

-

Karnage had to update his personal “most humiliating moments” list from “Being treed by a pack of stupid dogs” to “being carried through the jungle like a sack of potatoes with his wrists, ankles, and muzzle bound.” What made it worse was that his injured ankle was throbbing in pain, and the rope around it didn’t help.

“If you had told me before this that werewolves were real, I never would have believed you,” Davey said. “Although I kind expected them to be a little bigger than this one…”

“Who cares what size it is, we have the only living captive werewolf in existence! Not only that, we have the flying machine! People will be lining up for miles to pay to meet us! We’ll be rich! I bet we’ll get invited to meet the Queen,” Davey said eagerly. 

“We’re going to be more than rich, we’re going to be in the history books,” Michael replied.

“What about the other flying machine?” Mickey asked.

“We have one, that’s good enough for an initial investment. Once we have the money from selling the first one to the highest bidder, we can hire an expedition to locate the second one. After all, only we know where it is.” 

“How are you planning on proving it’s a flying machine if we can’t fly it?” Peter asked practically. 

“This creature is going to tell us how to fly it,” Michael answered. 

“What if it refuses?”

“I don’t think it is exactly in a position to argue,” Michael responded.

Karnage was getting annoyed with being talked about as an ‘it’, a ‘creature’, or like he wasn’t there listening to what they were saying. There wasn’t a lot he could do about it now, but the second he got a chance, he would absolutely make them pay for their rudeness. 

They arrived back to the village amid whispers of “Yaksha” from the people. “Gentlemen, gentlemen… and ladies,” Michael announced. “I can assure you this is no Yaksha. This creature is a werewolf, a human being who has been turned into a wolf man by a gypsy curse.” 

That’s a lie, Karnage thought, but he wasn’t in a position to say it. Especially since he couldn’t move his mouth. “You don’t have to fear, though. We have captured this beast as well as the flying monster, and as soon as we can arrange proper transportation, we will take them both back to England with us.” 

The men retreated into the hut they had taken over on their arrival. “Search him to make sure he’s not carrying any other weapons.”

“A small pistol, some matchbooks, and a selection of coins,” Davey and Peter said after rifling through his pockets.

Michael looked over the items. “I don’t recognize any of the places listed on these books, and I’ve never seen coins like these.” 

“They have human-like animal faces on them,” Mickey noted. “You’re right, I can’t think of any country with coins like these.” 

“You, village man,” Michael ordered, “Put the creature in the cage we brought. We’ll be putting that cage to much better use than bringing home a mere tiger for father. Once it’s secure, cut the ropes. I want to have a conversation with our new friend.” 

-

Meanwhile, Shere Khan was greatly disappointed that the men had returned to the village before he’d had a chance to fully sniff out the man child. He had told those vultures to distract the men for a sufficient amount of time for him to get his revenge. That had not been long enough.

He was sitting in the shade when he heard Baloo’s voice clearly say “Ow, why did you run into my back?”

“Why did you stop walking?” he heard the other Baloo snap back.

Khan looked through the brush and saw the most ridiculous excuse for a camel costume he had ever seen in his entire lifetime. Although, since he had never actually seen a camel costume before, that wasn’t really a hard bar to meet. The voices of the Baloos were coming from inside, and the camel was being led by someone dressed head to toe in Arabian-style robes, complete with a face mask. It took him a moment to realize it must be the bear cub he had seen with them. 

Earlier, back at the Sea Duck, Pilot Baloo had cracked open the cargo boxes in the back. “Who knew that carrying costumes for a Christmas pageant in July would work to our advantage?” he asked.

“What exactly is your plan?”

“Kit is going to disguise himself as a wise man travelling the world. We’ll disguise ourselves as his trusty camel. We’ll sneak into the village, break Karny out, and blow this popsicle stand.”

“What’s a popsicle stand?” Jungle Baloo asked.

“It’s- never mind,” Pilot Baloo said.

“What do you want me to do?” Bagheera asked.

“You’ll be…” Baloo said, digging through the box before triumphantly pulling out something white and fluffy “A sheep!” Bagheera did not look impressed.

“I’ll be the head of the camel,” Pilot Baloo said.

“What do you mean, you’ll be the head of the camel? I should be the head, since I know my way to the village,” Jungle Baloo pointed out. 

“I should be the head because it was my idea.”

“Actually, I think that Baloo has a point,” Kit said. “We need to have the ones who know how to get in and out of the village in the lead.”

After a moment, Pilot Baloo sadly shook his head. “Betrayed by my own navigator!”

The two Baloos had bickered almost the entire way to the village. “You have to stop fighting,” Kit said, although his voice was muffled by the face mask. “If they hear voices coming out of the camel, we’re dead meat.”

“Fine, fine,” both Baloos said. “You got your lines down, Baggy?” Jungle Baloo asked.

Bagheera stared straight at them. Finally, he said “baa” in the most uninterested, dry voice possible. If it was possible for that voice to simultaneously sound sarcastic, it would have. He had no idea why he agreed to go along with this nonsense. He could have been home right now, napping in the sunlight. 

Watching from the shadows, Khan grinned. His second distraction seemed to have arrived right on schedule. 

-

“You can’t pretend you don’t know how to talk forever; we’ve heard you speak!” Michael roared in frustration. “Now stop playing and tell us where you came from and how you got that flying machine!”

“Michael, Michael, my friend, maybe you need to take a softer approach,” Davey said quietly. He leaned slowly over towards the cage bars. “Hello. Please excuse my friend. He has a bit of a temper when he doesn’t get his way. It would be a lot easier on you if you just cooperated with us.”

Karnage was familiar with the “good cop bad cop” routine, and he wasn’t impressed. He continued to completely ignore them, focusing instead on using his claws and jaws to shred pieces from his undershirt to make a wrap for his ankle. He was pretty sure it was only sprained and not broken, but either way, it was pretty badly swollen. He wanted to get it wrapped up before it got any worse.

“That’s a stubborn one,” Davey said with a shrug. 

“I suggest we get a whip and some switches. If it won’t talk, it can scream,” Mickey said.

“We can’t bruise it up. If we damage it too much it might lose value,” Peter said, restraining Mickey’s arm. 

“If you want me to talk to you, you can start by stopping calling me ‘it’,” he finally said, checking the range of motion in his leg. “And stop treating me like the persona non au gratin.”

The men were all silent for a moment. “So, you finally remembered how to talk,” Peter spoke up. “You’re going to have to tell us what you want to be called if you don’t want us to be call you it.”

“I am the dreaded air pirate Don Karnage! I do not tolerate the humiliation of being kept in a cage like the wild animal! When I get out, you will pay for this impudence!”

“A pirate? What an antiquated idea,” Davey said. 

Michael cut in again. “You realize piracy is punishable by death, don’t you? You should feel lucky we’re keeping you in prison instead of taking you to the gallows. But you know, there is one way out of there, and that’s telling us how your flying machine works and where you got it. What country created such a thing and sent it here? Who is responsible?”

“It does not belong to any country, it is MINE,” he snapped. “And you can kiss off.”

“Michael, step back. You’re making this exchange worse,” Peter said, pushing Michael slightly back. “Look, when we return to England, we’re going to make a celebrity of you. Everyone is going to want to see the living werewolf! We’ll be invited to parties with queens, actors, dignitaries, all the greatest that British society has to offer. If you’re cooperative, we can let you out of that cage and you can be a star. Imagine, a werewolf in the court of Queen Victoria! But, if you keep fighting us, you will have to stay in that cage and be stared at like a zoo attraction.”

“I am not the werewolf! I am normal! You are the freaky hairless ape things.” He was getting tired of talking to them. 

“See, the thing is, I don’t really care what you are. I care what I can sell you as,” Peter responded.

“What is that commotion coming from outside?” Mickey asked suddenly, distracting the others. They all headed for the door to see what was going on. Mickey stopped them. “Shouldn’t someone stay and watch the not a werewolf?”

Michael scoffed. “I have the only key and that is a top of line lock. What’s it going to do, bite it’s way out?” he asked as he stormed outside.

The things Karnage called them when they left were not repeatable in any kind of family friendly context. However, he was glad not only that they had left, but they had done a sloppy job of searching him. Due to some… previous experiences that he’d rather not get into, he had taken up the habit of carrying a lock pick set strapped to his upper thigh. It was covered in a fur that he had picked up from a trader that had a remarkably similar consistency to his own, and if you weren’t really paying attention, it was easy enough to miss.

“State of the art lock my tail. State of the art for forty years ago,” he muttered to himself as he went to work on it. He was keeping his ears open in case the men returned, but he only needed a few minutes to get out of there.


	7. The bears in camel’s clothing and the wolf in sheep’s clothing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Baloo to the rescue in... Baloo style.

Outside, the men found what appeared to be an extremely short Arabian trader trying to dislodge his “camel” from the bush it had fallen into. The men looked suspiciously at the camel. It did not exactly look authentic. Fortunately, they didn’t notice the very annoyed looking sheep slipping around to the back of the building they had just emerged from. 

“What is going on here?” Michael demanded.

“Oh… um… my camel has… issues?” Kit said as Michael stormed up to him, towering over him. 

“Do you think we are idiots? That is not a camel!” he said, pointing. “It’s two buffoons in a suit!” A lightbulb suddenly went off over his head. “You’re here to steal our flying machine, aren’t you?” he ordered, grabbing Kit by the front of his robes.

“Get your hands off him!” Pilot Baloo shouted, forgetting that he was supposed to be a camel’s backside. Jungle Baloo kicked him as best he could from their twisted position.

“Wait, it’s- uh- it’s OUR flying machine, and don’t you want to know how it works?” Kit asked. “You look like very… uh… entrepreneurial men. You seem to have realized the value in our invention. So… we should discuss marketing! And sales!” 

The men were still suspicious. “Your flying machine? Then what of the werewolf?” he asked.

“Well, uh, you’ve- heard that only silver bullets can kill werewolves, right?” Kit knew his comic book mythology. 

“So?”

“So, if you have a werewolf in your flying machine, and it crashes, your pilot doesn’t die!” 

The men looked at one another. That made… a surprising amount of sense, at the same time that it didn’t make any sense. 

“If I’m to believe your story, WHERE did you get a werewolf?!”

“Um… America. Yeah. America is full of werewolves!” he said. “They just… don’t tell the British in case they need them as a secret weapon in another war.”

“Those cheeky buggers!” Davey said, clearly buying the excuse. Michael didn’t look so convinced. 

Meanwhile, Bagheera had located Karnage. He had broken himself out of the cage but was still unable to put any weight on his leg. Realizing that waiting for him to crawl away would take too long, Bagheera ordered, “Quick, get this stupid sheep costume off me. I have an idea.” 

Khan, meanwhile, had slipped into through the back of the village while the noise had directed everyone’s attention out front. He nearly collided with Bagheera, who appeared to be carrying a sheep on his back. “Really, Bagheera, and you chide me for taking food from the man village?” he asked.

“The man cub is not food!”

“And I am not food either,” Karnage said in annoyance.

“Be quiet, you’re supposed to be a sheep. Sheep don’t talk.” 

“What, exactly, are you going to do about it Bagheera? Fight me right here and now?”

Bagheera tensed up. Even if he weren’t carrying a heavy load on his back, fighting Khan was not on his bucket list of things he wanted to do in his life. He was afraid that if he did, it would be the last thing he did in his life.

Back out front, Michael looked over the “camel”, which had managed to stagger back to its feet. It was, however, standing with its back end at a ninety-degree angle to its back end. “I want to see exactly what clowns are in this camel!” he said and used his hunting knife to slash right through the middle. “What the- BEARS?!” he asked.

“Abort mission, abort mission!” Pilot Baloo shouted as he ditched the bottom half the costume and made a run for it. Jungle Baloo took off in another direction, still inside the top half of the camel costume.

“Get the guns!” Michael roared, and the other three ran inside. In a moment, a panicked Mickey came running back out. “The wolf is gone! The wolf is gone!” he cried in alarm.

“WHAT?!”

“I think that might be the sound of our cue to get out of here,” Bagheera said. Before he could say further, Peter burst out the back of the hut, hunting rifle in hand.

“TIGER, PANTHER, and SHEEP!” he shouted, taking a wild shot that didn’t go anywhere near its intended targets. Fortunately, he wasn’t the fastest of reloaders, and both Bagheera and Khan also scattered.

The entire village turned into a Scooby Doo chase scene. The various animals and the humans chasing them popped in and out of huts, under carts, through gardens, in every direction possible. Bagheera nearly collided with Kit. “Quickly, this way! We saw Karnage’s plane outside the village, if we can get to it, we can use it to escape.”

“My plane only has one seat,” the ‘sheepish’ Karnage pointed out.

“We’ll sit on the wings if we have to,” Kit said.

“I’m not sure it will fly with the weight of three bears, two of them Baloos, and a panther on it.”

“We have to try something!” Kit argued back. 

Mickey suddenly rounded the corner. “Got you, kid!” he shouted, grabbing Kit’s robes. The robes were loose enough that Kit was able to slide out of them and give Mickey a very firm swift kick to the knees, sending him crashing to the ground. 

“Let’s go!” Kit ordered.

“Talking bear! Talking beeeear!” Mickey shouted, trying to stumble back to his feet through the pain.

They scattered back to the plane and were met there by Pilot Baloo. “Where’s the other Baloo?” Kit asked in alarm. As if on cue, the other Baloo crashed through the village gates and charged off into the jungle, several villagers running after him. He still had the camel head on. 

In the jungle, Louie and the monkeys were returning. “I’m sure there is no ghost of the ruins,” Louie was trying to reassure them. “We probably just-“

Before he could finish his thought, the top half of a camel ran past him. “Boss, what in the heck was-“

The villagers and the hunters came pouring over the hill next, not expecting to run into a massive troupe of monkeys. They collided, sending monkey and man flying in every direction.

Kit and Pilot Baloo, meanwhile, had pushed Karnage’s plane far enough onto the river water that he was able to get it moving. They were holding onto the pontoons for dear life, while Bagheera clung to the tail. Just as they were about to get going, there was a suddenly loud noise as a weight fell on them. It was Khan, also hanging onto the back of the plane as they could see an angry crowd chasing him. 

“Now or never to gun it Karnage,” Pilot Baloo shouted. 

Michael took one desperate shot at them as the plane lifted into the air. “Ha, he missed!” Pilot Baloo shouted gleefully.

“Actually…” Karnage pointed out, and Baloo realized there was an object falling beneath them.

“Let me guess, he hit the connector holding one of the bombs on?”

“He hit the connector holding one of the bombs on.”

“Well, I suppose it could be worse. He could have hit the bomb.”

There was a loud explosion as they just fortunately managed to fly out of the blast zone. Also fortunately for the villagers, the explosion was just far enough outside of the village that it didn’t do any real structural damage. Poor Michael though? Well, he lived. But they would have to get him out of the tree he was now thoroughly entangled in. 

A combination of hearing a loud bang from the direction of their homes as well as taking a pummeling from a pile of angry monkeys sent the villagers fleeing back to check if their families were safe. This left the remaining three British “explorers” to take a beating at the hands of the outraged orangutan. “You know what?” Louie asked once the three men were thoroughly trashed. “This place is too crazy. Let’s find somewhere less nutty to live.”

“What about the other Baloo?” Kit asked. “Do you think he’s safe?”

“I hope so, Kit,” Pilot Baloo said. He was NOT enjoying flying while hanging off the side of a pirate’s plane. “We can’t exactly fly down into the trees.” 

They landed on the nearest part of the river to where the Sea Duck sat in the canopy. Khan jumped off and regally strutted away, doing his best to give the impression that everything had gone according to his plan. “I had better look for Baloo,” Bagheera started to say, but that wasn’t necessary. A moment later, part of a camel crashed out of the jungle foliage. They had no idea how Baloo had managed to run so fast in a camel.

“Get me out, I’m stuck in this thing!” he shouted in a muffled voice.

After they had rescued Baloo from the camel, they informed Karnage of the plan to leave. “You know, on one paw, I’m gonna miss having a handsome guy like myself around,” Jungle Baloo said. “On the other paw, you all are too crazy for me. I’m going to hibernate for a year after this.”

“For once, I believe Baloo has the right idea,” Bagheera yawned. 

-

Back in the present day, the rest of the air pirates were circling around the space where the cloud had been. “The captain vanished! What do we do, what do we do?” Dumptruck asked over the radio.

“Dibs on new captain!” Mad Dog called.

“Hey! I want to be new captain!” Dumptruck replied.

“Too bad, I’m first mate, and I called it.”

“You don’t get it just because you-“

The black cloud reappeared in the sky as quickly as it had disappeared, and both planes shot back out. “We did it, we did it, we’re back!” Kit shouted happily.

“I’ve never been so glad to see air pirates in my life,” Baloo agreed. He then paused, thinking. “Aw nuts. The air pirates! Let’s get out of here, Kit!”

“Captain!” Mad Dog called over the radio. “You’re back! We’re so glad! And we definitely weren’t planning to replace you or anything!”

“No, we would never do that!” Dumptruck agreed.

“Shut your faces, I am not in the moods. Disengage chase and return to the Vulture.”

“What? But captain-“

“I said, DISENGAGE CHASE AND RETURN TO THE VULTURE. I need a nap and all the rum in the pantry.” 

The air pirates would have a lot of questions later. Questions like Why are you limping and Why are you wearing a sheep costume? They would not get answers. They would get beaned over the head for asking. 

Back at Cape Suzette, Rebecca pointed out that Baloo was fifteen minutes late and missing several costumes from the cargo.

“Becky, believe me, if I told you what had happened, you would never in a million years believe me.”

“I was there and even I don’t believe it,” Kit said. 

At first it looked as if Rebecca was going to give them a real shouting down, but then she noticed something unusual sitting on one of the cargo boxes. “What’s this?” she asked, picking up Karnage’s sword. “Why do you have a pirate sword?”

“Aw, dang, we forgot to give that back to Karny. Well, losers weepers as the monkeys say,” Baloo shrugged.

“Speaking of monkeys, you smell like one,” Rebecca said, suddenly noticing the odor and covering her nose. “Just unload the rest of the cargo and take a shower before you explain to the client how you lost their camel and sheep costumes.” 

After Rebecca stomped away, Baloo turned to Kit. “You know, Kit, I’m glad there are no humans in this world. They were kind of freaky looking.”

“Yeah, I get your point papa bear. Can you imagine a bunch of humans, always watching us?”

Baloo shuddered. “That would be the worst.” 


End file.
